The present invention relates to managing distribution of software updates in Near Field Communication (NFC) mobile devices.
In a Near Field Communication (NFC) ecosystem, a distribution server managed by a third party acts as an intermediary between an Application Provider (AP), Mobile Network Operator (MNO) and NFC mobile device. A user of the NFC mobile device subscribes to the NFC mobile services of the MNO. The user of the NFC mobile device requests mobile applications from the AP. These will be deployed by the distribution server Over-the-Air (OTA) to a Secure Element of the NFC mobile device.
One of the biggest challenges today for MNOs is how can the AP (via the distribution server) push out updates to a very large population of NFC mobile devices in a timely and optimum manner. There may be millions of NFC mobile devices that require a mobile application update. The OTA bandwidth is quite limited, and hence communicating a software update to a large number of NFC mobile devices in a timely fashion without overloading the MNO's network can be difficult if not impossible to achieve. The Global Platform Standards currently provide no alternative to having the distribution server deploy the mobile application or OS update to each NFC mobile device OTA in turn. A new approach therefore is required to enable large scale software updates to make to NFC mobile devices.